The Scribe Winter/Spring Report 2017
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The Scribe Winter/Spring Report 2017 DEER LAKES The Official Student-Achievement SCHOOL DISTRICT Biannual of the Deer Lakes School District Est. 1969 East Deer I Frazer I West Deer www.deerlakes.net CONTENT 03 Superintendent’s Message 05 Academic & Community News: Kinesthetic Learning Lab, Healthier Food Choices 06 Academic & Community News: Surprise Homecoming, NMSI Increasing AP Opportunities 07 Notable Achievements: Everhart, VanderSchaaff, McGrath, and Burke 08 Distinguished Alumni Awards Announces 2017 Honorees 09 Deer Lakes on Hometown High Q 10 Fine Arts at Deer Lakes 11 Deer Lakes Hosts Massive Statewide Conference 12 STEM Initiatives at Deer Lakes: Family Science Night, Science Olympiad, Camp Curtisville 13 Penn State New Kensington Offers Deer Lakes Math Students a Free Homework Hotline 14 Varsity Sports Report: Fall and Winter Sports 15 Marching Band Wins Back to Back PIMBA Championships Individual Athlete Recognition Deer Lakes Board of School Directors are (from left): Jodi L. Banyas-Galecki, Louis W. Buck, Lisa E. Merlo (Vice President), Gary W. Torick, Clara Salvi (President), William A. Lupone, Jr., and Leanna Shurina. James F. McCaskey, and Phillip Ziendarski are not pictured. Most of the content seen within this magazine is the work of Deer Lakes Communications Specialist, James T. Cromie. If you have any questions or wish to offer feedback, please call 724-265-5300 Ext. 2131 or email [email protected]. DEER LAKES 02 www.deerlakes.net SCHOOL DISTRICT Message from the SUPERINTENDENT Dear Friends, Noted education author Chuck Schwahn writes, “Successful businesses view their products and services through the eyes of their customers …and design their organizational structure accordingly. Successful school systems view their learning opportunities through the eyes of learners…and design their instructional delivery system accordingly.” As you may have seen in the media, or read about online, Deer Lakes School District has begun to develop a reputation in educational circles over the past few years for our innovative approach to education. We have managed to begin to make a name for ourselves because we have made a commitment as a school district to listen to our students and their parents, and we have married their concerns and suggestions with the most recent research on Mass Customization of Learning and put theory into practice. We are now being recognized by other districts and education-affiliated organizations as “a district to watch.” Some of the programs catching the eye of our peers include: NMSI/AP, Primary Physical education/wellness, K-12 Language Arts Curriculum, STEM initiatives at all four district schools, and our K-12 after school coding program. We have also received accolades for our newly redesigned website and several technology-related initiatives. We are very excited about what is happening here and we are thrilled to be able to share some of those stories with you in the pages of this publication. Though we are proud of the progress we have made, we also realize that there is still much work to be done. With that in mind, Deer Lakes School District is continuing its efforts to provide 21st century learning skills through enhanced instructional practices and by embedding technology into the curriculum. Our goal is to continue to meet with students, parents, universities and local and regional businesses to build future focused educational opportunities for our students. On a personal note, I am most grateful for the support of the school board, administrators, teachers, staff and most of all the community, as we all work closely together to continue to move this district forward. JANELL LOGUE-BELDEN, ED.D Superintendent, Deer Lakes School District DEER LAKES SCHOOL DISTRICT www.deerlakes.net 03 Kinesthetic Learning Lab DEER LAKES 04 www.deerlakes.net SCHOOL DISTRICT Academic & Community News From Around the Deer Lakes School District Kinesthetic Learning Lab Curtisville Primary Center recently began the Kinesthetic Learning Lab, an area in the school where students have the unique opportunity to explore their content area work while remaining physically active. There are no desks or chairs in the “K-Lab” but there are plenty of balls, scooters, and hula hoops and the dynamic classroom is ever-changing to meet the needs of the students who use it. However, one constant is that it offers various stations for the children to use during class. One sub-group might throw balls at high frequency words on a blackboard, followed by pronouncing those words. Another group might be doing arithmetic while traversing a ladder lying on the floor; and another group might be doing a dance off or crunches based on simple math equations. Each student in the school has the opportunity to use the lab approximately once a week. You might think that such radical multitasking would cause the students to lose focus. However, according to Curtisville Health and Physical Education teacher Ron Nichols, who conceived of the idea, just the opposite is true. “Research shows your brain is much more stimulated once you get up and get active,” he said. “That’s where the educational system still has work to do. We just sit so much and our brain just goes numb. Sometimes we all need to get up and move around a bit just to reactivate our brains.” The lab became a reality after Deer Lakes received grants totaling $3,500 from Action for Healthy Kids and Let’s Move Pittsburgh. Menu Changes The Deer Lakes dining services team recently announced a series of new initiatives that are designed to give district students a greater number of healthy options that should help them flourish inside the classroom. “When looking at our overall dining services program, our team was able to identify several areas where we felt we could improve our offerings to our students,” said first year director Joseph Beaman, who cited breakfast as one such opportunity. “We just want to make sure we are providing our students with more high protein, low sugar offerings.” According to Beaman, studies have consistently shown that a good breakfast improves academic performance. For example, in a study of students in the Boston Public School System, participants who rarely ate breakfast (and that was over 60 percent of all participants) had a 40 percent greater risk of doing poorly in math and reading. Their math and reading scores were about 25 percent lower than the scores of students who regularly ate breakfast, and their grade point averages were also about 25 percent lower. Students who skip breakfast have also been shown to have more days absent from school and more days being tardy. With that in mind, Deer Lakes’ elementary breakfast program now includes new items like cheesy eggs with toast and will no longer offer flavored milks during that essential first meal of the day. Also, as part of the district’s continued commitment to whole fruits and vegetables, Deer Lakes is now offering fresh vegetables daily at all four of our schools and juice will be eliminated as a lunchtime fruit option at the elementary schools. The dining services team also plans to add ruby-red grapefruit and juicy oranges. DEER LAKES SCHOOL DISTRICT www.deerlakes.net 05 Academic & Community News From Around the Deer Lakes School District Surprise Homecoming Just before holiday break, during an assembly at Curtisville Primary Center, first-grader Levi Orris was asked by his teacher, Mrs. Sandi Hazlett, what he wanted for Christmas and he did not hesitate to answer. “I want my mom to come home for Christmas,” he said. “I would be so happy.” Orris had not seen his mom, a U.S. Army Reservist deployed at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, in six-months and was understandably missing her. What young Levi could not possibly have known at the time was that Sgt. Brandi Orris was indeed already in town. In fact she was just feet away from him when he voiced his greatest wish. Sgt. Orris, her husband and Levi’s little brother had sneaked into the assembly and, upon hearing those words from her little boy, she immediately leapt out from behind a wall of teachers that had been sheltering her and gave the six year-old boy the best surprise of his young life. They hugged each other for several minutes during their emotional reunion. Sgt. Orris will continue to serve her country from Fort Hood until later this summer. Hazlett, herself a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, helped orchestrate the entire surprise visit. NMSI Increasing AP Opportunities According to the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI), 162 Deer Lakes students enrolled in AP Math, Science, and English courses in 2015-2016 as compared to just 65 during the 2014-2015 school year. That represents a 149% increase in AP math, science and English course participation. Even more strikingly, the district saw a 376% increase in AP math, science and English exams taken, rocketing to 162 exams taken in 2015-2016 from just 34 the year before. The number of qualifying scores earned by students on math, science, and English AP exams was no less impressive, increasing from 24 to 61 for a 154% gain, which is more than 20 times the national average. It should come as no surprise then that Deer Lakes added more AP courses this year including AP Physics I and AP Stats. Also, last year Deer Lakes offered AP Physics, which it found to be better aligned with Physics II, according to the AP curriculum. To address that issue, Deer Lakes created a class designed to meet the needs of students who are interested in taking AP Physics but are not yet ready to take AP Physics II.